By Laura Ulrich

Laura Ulrich is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management. She can be reached at: lulrich@MomentumMedia.com.

Last year, when Paul Krebs interviewed for his position as Athletic Director at the University of New Mexico, one question came up over and over. From the university president to head coaches, everyone asked him: Are you a good communicator?

"UNM was looking for an athletic director who could improve the department's entire culture of communication," Krebs says. "On campus, off campus, and simply between members of the athletic department staff, we needed a complete philosophical change."

Kevin Buisman, Athletic Director at Minnesota State University-Mankato, had the same experience during his hiring process. "Interview questions came back to communication again and again," he says. "It was obvious pretty quickly that the university wanted to hire an athletic director who could help it improve in this area."

Communication has become perhaps the top priority for today's athletic administrators, and the reason is simple. Never before have so many different constituencies wanted and needed to know what's happening in an athletic department, and never before have athletic departments depended so heavily on the support of those constituents. In addition, internal communication with coaches, staff, and student-athletes is increasingly important to maintaining success.

"As athletic directors today, we have so many people with a buy-in to what we're doing--donors, alums, the media, the corporate world, fans--and that's just externally," says Mike Thomas, Athletic Director at the University of Cincinnati. "Internally, there are even more. It is critical that we're great communicators because it's our job to make sure our department's message is getting out to all of these different groups in a way that is consistent, and yet tailored and meaningful for them.

"Communicating is truly one of the most important things we do on a daily basis, whether we're talking to a student-athlete, a coach, the president, or the board of trustees," Thomas continues. "It is the key to becoming a successful leader in today's athletics environment."

PASSION & STYLE
Exceptional communicators have one thing in common, says Kathleen Hessert, President of Sports Media Challenge, a North Carolina-based communications consulting company that focuses on athletics: They are passionate about communication. "No matter how many other things are tugging at them, great communicators are committed to sharing ideas in ways that make sense and that their listeners will care about," she says.

That doesn't mean, however, that every effective communicator must take the same approach. "There are many styles of powerful communication, and no single one is right," Hessert says. "For some great leaders, their strength is their energy. They talk constantly and enthusiastically. But there are some equally good communicators who are quiet. They sit back and listen and when they do talk, their words are clear and directly relevant to the audience.

"The key is knowing your own strengths and weaknesses," she continues. "For example, if you are a high-energy communicator, know that you need to slow down sometimes. If you tend to communicate more deliberately, watch for times when bringing more energy to your communication could better get your message across."

With any style, there are a few communication essentials that can help. The first one is accessibility. "You have to be visible and approachable," says Sister Lynn Winsor, Athletic Director at Xavier College Preparatory School in Phoenix, Ariz. "People need to know that you care about what they have to say."

"I think accessibility is critical," Krebs agrees. "My door is almost never closed. I spend a lot of time walking around to my staff's offices and visiting coaches at practice. I don't think I can be a great communicator unless people know I'm here and I'm concerned."

Second, you need to know why your message matters to your listener. "In any situation, you have to be able to answer the question, 'What does this mean to this particular audience and why should they care?'" Hessert says.

Third, be absolutely clear on what you're trying to communicate. "You should be able to crystallize your message into one sentence," Hessert says. "The average listener retains one idea. Ask yourself, if they understand and remember one thing, what do I want that to be?"

FACE TO FACE
From meeting with parents or alumni to going over a budget with a coach, much of an athletic director's communication happens one-on-one. The key elements to making these conversations work are: listening, following up, timing, and environment.

Cary Groth, Athletic Director at the University of Nevada, is a big believer in learning to listen. "Early in my career, I'd meet with someone and think we reached complete agreement, only to realize later that I had a totally different interpretation of what was said than they did," she says. "That happened because I used to jump in and share my ideas before I knew what the real issue was. Now, I always try to let the other person speak first."

The best listeners convey that they genuinely care about the other person's concerns. "Great listeners don't get distracted, they maintain eye contact, and they occasionally repeat back what they've heard the person say," says Tom Doyle, former Athletic Director at Seattle Preparatory School and co-founder of Personal Perceptions Northwest, an athletics-oriented communications consulting firm in Bellevue, Wash.

Asking follow-up questions is also critical to the process. Groth offers a recent meeting she had with Nevada Head Women's Basketball Coach Regina Miller as an example. "We met to work on scheduling," Groth says. "What Regina showed me was very different from what I had in mind. But instead of talking about my views, I asked her to tell me why she had scheduled the way she did. From her answer, I realized I really needed to ask, 'What is your philosophy on scheduling?' She told me, and I learned that it was somewhat different from mine. From there, we were able to come to decisions on the schedule that we were both happy with.

"The majority of the communication in that meeting consisted of me sitting back, listening, and asking in-depth questions," Groth continues. "If you don't do that, you will think you're communicating, but you'll never get to the heart of what you're trying to discuss."

Along with asking follow-up questions, Groth likes to send a follow-up e-mail after complicated discussions. "Let's say I met with a coach who requested charter buses for their program, but I wasn't able to provide them this year," she says. "I would send an e-mail afterward that says, 'It was great to talk to you today. As we discussed, let's look at using charters again a year from now.'"

Hessert suggests also paying careful attention to the timing of one-on-one conversations. "Ask yourself, what is a good time to maximize the effectiveness of talking with this particular person?" she says. "For example, if you need to talk to a coach, think about his or her schedule. Meeting right before practice may not be optimal, because they are concentrating on getting out to the field."

The environment you create is also important. "You want to put the other person at ease," Hessert says. "Body language and positioning have a lot to do with that. If you are communicating with a coach who is sitting and you're standing over them, that will affect the way they perceive your message. It's best to be seated face to face, without a desk or other obstruction between you."

For Groth, creating the right meeting environment means thinking beyond her office. "Whether I like it or not, my office is perceived as the principal's office," she says. "If I call someone in for a meeting, chances are they are going to feel slightly uncomfortable. Instead, I go to them whenever possible. The fact that I'm willing to come to their turf starts the communication on a different note.

"Better yet, I meet them in a neutral place," Groth continues. "I learned this from our president--I have twice-monthly meetings with him at a bagel shop and it works great, so I instituted 'coffee with Cary' for my coaches. At least once a semester, I meet each of them at Starbucks. It's not necessarily to talk about work. It's more to talk about what's going on in their lives and how I can support them in their jobs. I get very different information than I would get if I called them into my office. I really get to know them, and that makes all our communication work better."

IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Public speaking is a growing part of an athletic director's job, and it offers its own communication challenges. "I don't think an athletic director can succeed anymore without being an effective public speaker," Hessert says. "The good news is, public speakers are made, not born. Everyone can get better at it."

Hessert's first piece of public speaking advice is to bring extra energy to the stage. "Regardless of your usual style, you need to up the energy level," she says. "Energy translates to conviction in the listeners' minds, and no public speech will work without it."

The second ingredient of a successful speech, according to Hessert, is story telling. "People naturally like to hear stories," she says. "They'll pay more attention and remember more if you share anecdotes rather than just giving them facts, statistics, or opinions."

Thomas agrees, and uses stories from his memories and experiences whenever possible. "I often talk about great, charismatic coaches I've known," he says. "This works especially well when speaking to sports fans as they're intrigued by coaches."

Groth finds that student-athletes make equally compelling subjects for anecdotes. "Any time I tell a story about one of our athletes, people really listen," she says. "I might talk about our skier who is deaf, or a student-athlete who earned a 4.0 GPA, or an e-mail I got from a former athlete serving in the Peace Corps."

Understanding your audience is also important. "I always ask for a profile of the group I'll be addressing and find out what they want to hear about," Thomas says. "Sometimes I'm speaking to people who aren't even that interested in sports per se. So if I give a speech aimed at sports fanatics, it's not going to work."

Audiences will connect better with a speaker who uses a spontaneous delivery than one who relies heavily on prepared notes, according to Hessert. She advises planning in some detail what you're going to say and then boiling it down to a few bullet points that will fit on an index card. "Work with the bullets until you don't need to look at them and can simply speak in the moment," she says. "You can take the bullet points with you to refer back to if you need them, but the less notes, the better."

Groth has learned over the years to employ that technique. "I have discovered that when I get up with just a sticky note and speak candidly, I get a better response," she says. "But getting to that point has been an evolution for me. What's really helped is to realize that I can simply speak from the heart. I focus on what I have a passion for and just let that show through."

That approach worked for Jim Weaver, Athletic Director at Virginia Tech, when he had to deliver some of the most difficult speeches of his career this spring. Following the shooting deaths of 32 students and faculty, Weaver was asked to make several public appearances to talk about how the school would recover from the tragedy.

"I found that all I could do was speak from my heart," Weaver says. "I wanted to convey the message that this is a great place with high quality leadership and wonderful students. Those could have been very difficult speeches, but I just got up and talked about the Hokie spirit and the love I have for this school, and it wasn't hard."

Krebs has discovered that one way to make talks more spontaneous is to shorten the speech portion and leave more room for questions and answers. "It becomes more like a conversation," he says. "Over the years, I've really made the Q&A portion of my talks the main focus."

For athletic directors who find public speaking nerve-wracking, Hessert has one tip: Focus on your audience, not yourself. "Look at people and make eye contact," she says. "Concentrate on connecting, not putting on a show. That will take your focus off yourself and you'll be surprised how your nerves will disappear."

Since public speaking is a learned skill, it helps to regularly evaluate your performance. "I recommend recording yourself and listening to it later," Hessert says. "You may find you thought you communicated one thing, but you really said something else. Or you may realize you overemphasized something and that created an odd balance."

Thomas relies on members of his staff to grade his efforts. "I typically have someone from my staff in the audience and afterward I ask them how I did," he says. "They'll tell me, 'That was a real home run,' or 'Boy, I'd have to give you a D tonight.' I use that feedback as a scorecard to help me get better."

AMID CONTROVERSY
No athletic director gets through his or her career without having to make some decisions that draw criticism. How you communicate in these situations makes the difference between news people don't like but can accept, and a deep rift with your constituents with long-term consequences.

"When you're making an unpopular decision, communication is the entire solution," Krebs says. "You don't have the option of closing yourself off and refusing to explain your choice. You have to reach out to the people involved."

The first step, according to Weaver, is to be thoroughly prepared to explain your decision. "Do your research, have your facts in order, and know what the questions and criticisms are going to be beforehand," he says. "Never start the communication process until you've exhausted your preparation."

It is also effective to present your decision first to leaders who others look to for reactions. Groth took this approach recently when her department chose to move from having several different contracts with equipment suppliers to having a single contract with one supplier.

"Our coaches were used to having their own contracts and communicating with suppliers directly, so I knew this was going to be a controversial change," she says. "So I first went to our most veteran coaches and told them what we were going to do. I explained why this would be better for our department and asked them to support the decision. They did, and that helped ease the transition."

Winsor faced a similar scenario when her department created a policy banning out of state travel for teams. "I knew some people weren't going to be happy with the decision," she says. "I talked to key coaches ahead of time and really explained our position--that kids who couldn't afford the travel were struggling and it wasn't fair. I was able to build some consensus for the new policy before the larger meeting, and that helped."

Weaver offers another tip: When you have to communicate about a difficult issue, don't put it off. "That just makes things fester," he says. "People are waiting to hear from you. Even if they never come to agree with you, you'll gain their respect by being as forthcoming and transparent as possible."

Following the above steps allowed Buisman to create a successful outcome to what started out as a public relations nightmare. In 2005, during the NHL lockout, his school was offered the opportunity to move a men's ice hockey game with rival University of Minnesota to the Excel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild. The arrangement promised a $100,000 boost for the hockey program's budget, and Buisman decided the opportunity was too good to pass up. But he immediately took heavy criticism for the decision.

"We heard from every business owner in town who believed they would be negatively impacted by not having the game at home," Buisman says. "To say people were upset is an understatement."

To respond, Buisman made sure he could clearly articulate how he had reached the decision and how the additional revenue would benefit the hockey program. Then he called a public forum and invited the disgruntled business owners. "Walking in there was tough, but I knew I had to do it," Buisman says. "It was just me and the hockey coach in a room of fairly hostile people. We told them, 'We're here because we want to hear your concerns, but we're also here to share our side of the story. We just need to listen to each other.'"

One of Buisman's talking points included the concept that the local businesses could actually benefit in the long run from the hockey program's windfall. "We explained to them that the $100,000 would help us put a better program on the ice and a better program will eventually lead to full houses in their establishments for every home game instead of just a couple times a year," he says.

Before the meeting, he talked with local business leaders who had a longer-range commitment to the athletics program and solicited their support in convincing their peers to look at the bigger picture. Those contacts paid off, as audience members spoke up in support of moving the game, helping to end the controversy.

"The dialogue went on for over an hour and a lot of people who came in angry left talking about how we could work together in the future," Buisman says. "I can't imagine it would have worked out so well if we had simply said, 'It's our hockey program and our decision. We don't have to explain it to you.' I really learned the value of being open, transparent, and willing to engage people in discussion, especially when they're not happy with what you've done."

HEARING THE RESULTS
As a former coach and a longtime athletic administrator, Cary Groth has communicated a lot over the years. But that doesn't mean she's stopped focusing on this critical skill. "It's an area I constantly work on," Groth says. "It doesn't matter how much I improved last year--I can always learn more this year. The challenge is to keep evaluating my own effectiveness and figure out what I can do better."

One of the best ways to assess whether your communication is hitting the mark is to ask others to evaluate you. Thomas relies on feedback from his department's experts in sports information and media relations, while Winsor asks coaches to grade her communication skills after each season.

Weaver pays attention to the results. "If I think I've communicated about something and yet the issue comes up again, I know I've missed the boat," he says. "At that point, I try to evaluate where I may have gone wrong in my approach."

According to Hessert, there is one more clue you can look for. "You should be hearing your ideas echoed by others within your department," she says. "If you're truly communicating well, you'll begin to hear the same concepts, even the same words, making their way back to you as they become part of the culture and the conversation."

Sidebar: PERFECTING THE MESSAGE
For many athletic departments today, communicating with constituents means helping them understand the department's core values. But how do you share such an in-depth and nuanced message with a wide variety of stakeholders? One solution is to create a simple phrase that serves as shorthand for your mission.

The University of Nevada unveiled its slogan, "Stay True," this summer. To develop those two words, Athletic Director Cary Groth began by sitting down with her management team to decide exactly what concept they wanted to communicate to constituents. "For us, it was about keeping people connected," Groth says. "It isn't just about student-athletes--our team consists of alums, fans, season ticket holders, coaches, administrators, and parents. We realized we really wanted to communicate a message about loyalty."

With that decided, Groth put Nevada's public relations firm on the task, asking it to come up with some slogans for the theme. "Stay True" was the result, and Groth believes it works. "I think eventually when people see those two words, they'll feel a sense of loyalty to Nevada athletics," she says.

The recently unveiled slogan at Minnesota State University-Mankato, "Building Champions," was the result of input from student-athletes, coaches, community members, and athletic department staff. "It means a lot more than winning games," says Athletic Director Kevin Buisman. "We're also building champions in academics and in life. We used the word 'building' to signify that it's a process--we want our student-athletes to grow through their entire four years here, and we understand that as coaches and administrators, we're the builders. When I'm sitting down to prepare a speech or write a letter, I use those ideas to focus my words."

At the University of New Mexico, Athletic Director Paul Krebs is currently overseeing the process that will create his department's slogan. A series of retreats with senior staff and head coaches to discuss mission and core values will be the first step, followed by extensive discussions with stakeholders.

Ultimately, Krebs believes a slogan is only as good as the ideas and commitment behind it. "A catch phrase can be a great way to crystallize your message on a billboard or a letterhead, and it's certainly the industry trend," he says. "But it needs to be a lot more than that. You have to make sure your department lives that slogan, or it's nothing more than buzz words."

Sidebar: EASY AS ABC
Communicating effectively in difficult situations can be as easy as ABC, according to Kathleen Hessert, President of Sports Media Challenge, a North Carolina-based communications consulting company that works with athletes, coaches, and administrators. "First you Acknowledge their opinion or emotion without agreeing to it," she says. "Next, you Bridge to your point of view. Last, you Concisely state your point of view."

For example, let's say a coach has lost his temper and spoken inappropriately with parents who are pushing for more playing time for their child. "Following the formula, your response might look something like this: 'I certainly understand why you're frustrated that the parents aren't respecting your authority and why that made you angry. However, our department has a policy of professionalism when communicating with parents. Your response to them was inappropriate,'" says Hessert.

A second formula, PREP, can help both communicators who ramble and those who are too brief. The acronym stands for point of view, reasons, evidence, and point of view again. "You start by stating your Point of view clearly, give the Reason for your point of view, lay out your Evidence, and state your Point of view again," Hessert says. "The first three steps help you organize the information and present it in a way that people will understand, and repeating your point of view at the end increases the likelihood they'll remember it."